Mission Dragon, page 9
But it was too late. Jian, distracted by the collapse of the tripod, had let the end of his burning branch drop. The dragon that he had been holding at bay lunged, not at the hand holding the wood but at his other one, the injured one in the sling. He screamed as its jaws closed over his wrist and dragged him down to the ground.
Crunch.
Chapter 24
“Get off him!”
Beck clubbed his stick as hard as he could against the dragon’s side and Ju-Long launched a furious kick at its head. But the dragon had already let go of Jian’s wrist and backed off.
Now none of the humans were distracting the other dragons, and the other three all pressed forward. One of them swung around, maybe looking for the food it could still smell, and its tail knocked against the base of the fire. It quickly flicked the tail away again when it sensed the heat, but the pieces of wood scattered and the skewer that held the lobster over the flames toppled to the ground. A dragon swiftly swooped and grabbed it in its jaws, pulling it away from the heat. Another dragon pounced and grabbed the lobster’s head. The shell split in two, leaving each of them with half a lobster. The other two dragons immediately started to grapple with their friends, with hisses and strange croaks of frustration. For the time being, they had forgotten the humans and Beck could give all his attention to Jian.
The older boy lay on the ground, eyes closed, shuddering, with a strange, choking sound coming from his mouth – the sound of someone in so much pain that it couldn’t come out all at once. Dreading what he was going to see, Beck gently took his wrist and studied it – and blinked when he found hardly any damage at all.
The splint on Jian’s arm bore the clear imprint of a powerful pair of jaws, but it had also taken all the impact. No wonder the dragon had dropped him so quickly – it had expected a tasty morsel and just got wood and polystyrene. The pressure would have squeezed the ends of Jian’s broken bone together, and Beck could well imagine the pain that must have caused. But that was all.
But just as he was feeling a gush of relief, and opening his mouth to tell Jian that he would be okay, a flash of red appeared. And grew. Blood was pooling along the edge of the splint.
Beck gently turned Jian’s wrist over, and cursed under his breath as he took the whole picture in. The splint had protected the top and bottom of Jian’s wrist – but, on the side, just below the wrist joint, the dragon’s teeth had torn through the skin. Blood welled up out of the puncture wounds, each about a centimetre wide. There was no way of telling how deep they went. And they would need attention. If they were back in civilisation, any kind of animal bite would mean heading straight off to the nearest hospital.
No hospitals here, though.
“Come on. Let’s go,” he said quietly, shooting a final look at the squabbling dragons. They were aggravated – they might easily just turn on the humans. He quickly picked up the sling full of oysters. Beck wasn’t going to let them go to waste. “Jian, can you stand? Ju-Long, help me…”
It wasn’t easy because Jian was taller than both of them, and he was still faint with pain. His mind was jumbled, and every conscious and unconscious thought was about doing absolutely nothing that might jar his body with the tiniest movement. But they helped him to his feet and supported him with arms around his waist. They staggered past the dragons, which were still fighting even though the lobster had completely gone.
“I feel sick,” Jian mumbled. His face was whiter than Beck had ever seen.
“We need to treat those bites,” he said. “Any kind of animal bite can be infectious and goodness knows what’s in those things’ saliva. We don’t know what they’ve been eating.”
They had already set up a fire back at the beach camp, ready to be lit when they returned that evening. Jian was ready to slump down on the sand, but Beck shook his head. They helped him over to the platform so that he could prop himself up there, with his arm resting on the wood. It wasn’t exactly sterile hospital conditions but it was cleaner than the sand.
“Brace yourself. I’m going to take the splint off…”
As gently as he could, Beck undid the ropes that held Jian’s splint in place. The two halves came away cleanly and he could study the rest of Jian’s arm. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw there were no more bites – just the two he already knew about. They were circular puncture wounds, so if they didn’t go bad, they had the best chance of healing nicely.
“Okay.” Beck handed Ju-Long the metal saucepan and a bottle. “Fill these up with sea water, please.”
Ju-Long nodded and hurried off, as Beck bent down to light the fire. For once, being stranded on an island was in their favour. They were close to sea, and salt water was naturally antiseptic.
Ju-Long was back. She hastened over to Jian and began to dribble salt water from the bottle slowly over the bite marks, rinsing anything larger than a bacterium out of the wounds. The water mingled with the blood that was already clotting and ran to the ground in red streams.
Beck balanced the full saucepan over the fire and willed the flames to take hold so that the water could start to boil. Which of course, he thought, a watched pot never does. A wood fire was great for roasting food but it wasn’t as hot, or as quick, as a gas fire back home.
“Is there anything in the bite marks?” he asked. “Any black specks? Bits of dragon food or anything else?”
“No,” Ju-Long reported after a moment. “They seem clean. I will keep washing them.”
“Yes, keep going, thanks.”
While he was waiting for the water to boil, he took the knife and cut a strip off Jian’s trouser leg, from ankle up to the knee. He dunked the material in the slowly warming water. The wounds would need bandaging, and the bandage would need disinfecting if it wasn’t just going to add to the problem.
Tendrils of steam were curling up from the water, and small bubbles were appearing, clinging to the sides of the saucepan. He gave the bandage a prod with the knife blade to push it all under water.
Finally, the water in the pan was heaving and bubbling. He gave it a minute, then carried the knife and pan over to Jian.
He lifted the bandage out of the boiling water with a stick and held it so that the air would cool it down. When he thought enough time has passed, he lowered the bandage onto Jian’s wrist and wrapped it around the bite marks. Jian grunted, a sound of a much deeper pain pushing its way out. His arm was still unsplinted; the ends of the broken bones were rubbing together.
Chapter 25
Ju-Long quickly wrapped the bandage around Jian’s wrist, tying the ends together in a reef knot. Only then did Jian let himself make a sound.
“Ah-h-h-h…”
It came out like a release of steam under colossal pressure.
Beck quickly tied the splint back onto Jian’s arm. Jian cradled it tenderly.
“You’ve done what you can. Thank you.”
“But, what next?” Ju-Long said in frustration. “The dragons take another meal! We need to guard against them properly–”
“I don’t think we can,” Beck said quietly. He shoved his hands into his pockets and went to stand looking out to sea – and at the next island, a kilometre away. “We talked about a stockade, we talked about using the net – but face it, they’re strong enough to push through any kind of defences that we build. We could – could – try to kill them. Yeah, I know,” he added in response to Ju-Long’s surprised look. “Endangered and all that, and this is me speaking, but there’s still more of them in this world than there are of us. But we don’t know if there are only the four we saw, and we don’t know how fast they could move if they really felt threatened. Jian was lucky to be bitten where he was. A bite like that on one of our arms or legs and we’d be out of the game for good.”
“So what do you suggest?” Ju-Long asked.
Jian had already seen where Beck was looking.
“You think we are on the wrong island,” he said.
“Yeah, I do.”
Ju-Long followed Beck’s gaze.
“There may be dragons there too,” she pointed out. “Perhaps ours swam over from there?”
It had already crossed Beck’s mind.
“Best case scenario – there’s no dragons. Worst case – there’s dragons, but the island’s much bigger and we’ll have more space and more resources to defend against them. Which we don’t have here.” He shot a final look across the water. “Either way, we need to evacuate.”
Chapter 26
“So,” Jian said, “we get to make a raft after all. Tiangong-4.”
It was good to see Jian willing to make a joke, even if it was a little close to the bone. Beck managed a small smile.
He and Beck stood and surveyed the results of several hours’ effort. The raft sat on the sand at the edge of the water, loaded up with a pile of their few possessions, waiting for them.
It had been a cooperative effort for all three of them – Beck and Ju-Long doing most of the work but always with Jian being as useful as he could be. He could hold ropes steady while someone else tied them, and he could gather things together with one hand, ready to come with them on the journey.
They had worked without a break for the rest of the morning, with only a slight pause for a lunch of raw oysters – not great, but quicker than catching and cooking another fish. They had to get everything ready so that they could make the magic target of 1pm, when the tide would be fully out. Jian calculated the incoming tide would help them on their way. Going against the tide would just be a waste of effort – no matter how strongly they pushed forward, the weight of an entire ocean would be pushing them back, and that would only have one result, sweeping them out into the South China Sea.
The raft was built of three layers: a basic framework of driftwood, followed by the lifebuoys and all the polystyrene packaging they could find, followed by another layer of wood for Jian to sit on. Most of the wood had come from dismantling the platform and the rest came from plundering the reserves of flotsam washed up on the shoreline.
The raft was small, so the plan was for Jian to sit on it with their things, and he and Ju-Long would swim behind it and push.
The raft did have a mast, of sorts – a single upright piece of wood that would be higher than Jian when he was sitting down. Beck had tied the radar reflector to the top of this, to make them more visible – not just to ships far off, but to any that might come sailing through the channel between islands – and then draped a couple of layers of what was left of the rope fishing net over it, so that it covered the raft like a very holey tent.
“That will not keep the rain off,” Jian had commented wryly.
“It’s not meant to.” Beck lifted a corner of the net up to show him. The deck of the raft was dappled with points of light. “It’ll be like sitting under a tree – it cuts out about fifty percent of the sun.” He looked out over the blue, sparkling waves. “And you’ll need it. It’ll be blistering out there.”
Ju-Long came down the beach towards them.
“All done,” she said.
Back where the camp had been, at the top of the beach and above the high-water mark, she had done the last thing they would do on this island – use stones to mark out a large arrow, pointing out to sea and over at their destination. She had also written their names in the sand:
LI JU-LONG
ZHOU JIAN
BECK GRANGER
Anyone who came looking for them should certainly work out where they had been and where they had gone.
“Everyone have a drink.” Beck passed the bottles around. “Might as well carry it inside us.” They each drained one bottle – the rest were all stored on top of the raft.
He gave a last look at the camp, and forced a laugh.
“Aw, that’s sweet. They’ve come to say goodbye.”
A couple of dragons prowled around where the camp had been.
“Or, they are asking ‘where’s my fish?’” Ju-Long said.
Beck shrugged. “Whichever. Come on, let’s go.”
He and Ju-Long dragged the raft out into the sea. Jian waded out and clambered awkwardly onto it, making himself as comfortable as he could in the middle. Ju-Long and Beck began to push.
The first wave came at them before the water was up to their chests. The raft rose up, with Jian clinging on, and the water broke around them. The raft splashed down into the trough of water behind the wave and bubbles foamed up through the cracks. But the life buoys and foam in the second layer were extremely buoyant, and even though Jian got soaked the raft rose up out of the water again with ease.
Beck felt his body getting lighter and lighter on his feet, and the next wave lifted him off the sea floor altogether. They were further out, so the wave wasn’t as high, and the raft rose up and down without difficulty. With feet churning behind them, he and Ju-Long propelled the raft away from the island of the dragons.
Chapter 27
“Ninety eight,” Jian called over the sound of splashing water. “Ninety nine… a hundred!”
Beck and Ju-Long gratefully stopped swimming and clung to the edge of the raft. Against his better judgement, Beck looked back.
The old island was still disappointingly near. Even after only five minutes – and a hundred kicks – Beck’s legs felt like lumps of lead dangling from his waist.
With his head at sea level and the raft in the way, he couldn’t tell how close the next island looked. If at all. He decided not to bother. They would get there when they got there – if it took a long time then it would be what he expected, and if it was sooner then that would be a nice reward.
Jian passed a couple of water bottles down under the edge of the net that shielded the raft. Beck took his carefully to keep salt splashes out and drank a couple of mouthfuls, making sure that every drop washed around the inside of his mouth before swallowing.
“Okay, let’s get going again,” he said as he and Ju-Long handed their bottles back up. His legs still felt like dead weight, but maybe there was a little more life in them as he began to kick and the raft carried on in its journey.
“One.” Jian began counting again. “Two, three…”
They swam for two more hundred-kick stints without any trouble. Jian navigated from his perch on the raft, since Ju-Long and Beck couldn’t see where they were going. “Go left a bit… that’s it…”
They had their third break and drink of water, and resumed.
As Jian was reaching a hundred for the fourth time, Beck felt the raft jump suddenly. Instead of forwards it went up, then backwards, and he had to push it away to stop it hitting him in the face.
“Woah! What?”
“Rough water–” Jian began. The raft reared again, and Beck heard the gasp as Jian fell badly on his side.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes–”
Water broke over them all.
Beck looked to left and right, past the raft. The water that had been rising and falling in large swells had suddenly become choppy and agitated.
“It is the tide,” Jian reported. “There must be two currents colliding here. The waves are quite high.”
“No kidding,” Beck muttered. This was something they couldn’t have seen from the island, or even from very far away. Not until they were right on top of it. He kept a hold on the raft. It would be all too easy to become separated and unable to grab it again. They would be carried away by wind and currents.
“Is it going to push us off course?” he asked.
“Maybe not. But…” Jian clutched at the raft as it dipped again. “It could tip us over if we do not keep moving.”
Ju-Long and Beck glanced at each other.
“No break this time?” she said.
“I guess not,” he said grimly. “Not until we’re through it…”
Spluttering as water broke over their heads, arms now aching just as much as their legs as they grappled with the bucking raft, they continued on their way.
It’s only a kilometre, Beck kept telling himself. It’s only a stupid kilometre…
He could walk a kilometre. He could probably hop a kilometre without taking a break. He could definitely swim one – up and down the school pool ten times, no problem. But this was different. It used so many different muscles – your arm muscles to keep your arms up and push the raft, your neck muscles to hold your head out of the water, your stomach and waist muscles to keep your body straight, and of course your leg muscles to do all the heavy work. Kick, kick, kick… And the water itself didn’t help – its up and down motion only increased the distance they had to swim. The waves constantly knocked them one way or another, so they constantly had to adjust their direction, and although the tide carried them mostly in the right way, they kept having to alter course or they would have been swept right past the island altogether...
Beck had known it would be mentally and physically taxing. Anything to do with the sea always was, if you were relying on your own efforts. It had infinite strength and variety to throw at you, and humans only had the strength of their own bodies and the limits of their own minds to respond with.
But… this taxing…
Kick, kick, kick…
On their seventh – or was it eighth? – break, suddenly the island was looking much closer. Beck could see it ahead, even from his position with his head at the same level of the sea, behind the raft.
“Okay! One more go and we’re there!”
And, soon after they set off for that last final push with legs that felt like they would drop off at any moment, Beck heard the sound of surf. He began to feel the surges in the water, pulling on his body. The raft, and them with it, began to move smoothly and slowly up and down as it encountered the swell that would become waves. The motion become heavier and more urgent.
“Here we go…” Jian called.
Beck felt the raft moving of its own volition, no longer pushed by him but carried forward by water rushing towards the beach. The surf sounds grew louder and he felt the vibration carried through the water.
